<\/p>\n
What began as a relatively niche conspiracy theory from the far right was able to\u2014and continues to\u2014influence a wide range of actions by the second Trump administration. In myriad ways, the idea of the censorship-industrial complex, or CIC, explains the logic behind how the administration operates both at home and internationally.<\/p>\n
Over the past nine months, MIT Technology Review<\/em> and Type Investigations have traced how the theory came to influence the country\u2019s most powerful individuals. We found that it took off in 2023, driven by a handful of individuals, with support from a close-knit group of right-wing organizations and media outlets\u2014and an internet activist named Mike Benz at its center.<\/p>\n Read the full story on how the CIC framework has shaped government action.<\/p>\n \u2014Eileen Guo, Gisela Perez de Acha, and Martin Sona<\/em><\/p>\n Join us next week for <\/strong>a subscriber-only Roundtables discussion<\/strong> about how the \u201ccensorship-industrial complex\u201d idea started, where it\u2019s going, and what it means for the future of American democracy and the internet. <\/strong>Subscribers can register for free<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The must-reads<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve combed the internet to find you today\u2019s most fun\/important\/scary\/fascinating stories about technology.<\/em><\/p>\n 1 AI has designed new viruses from scratch for the first time #Download #censorship #conspiracy #theory #virus #created<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What began as a relatively niche conspiracy theory from the far right was able to\u2014and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9229,6923,3145,803,12727,12728,156],"class_list":["post-19478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-censorship","tag-conspiracy","tag-created","tag-download","tag-the-download-a-censorship-conspiracy-theory-and-the-first-virus-created-by-ai","tag-theory","tag-virus"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top.jpg",1200,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top-300x150.jpg",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top-768x384.jpg",640,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top-1024x512.jpg",640,320,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top.jpg",1200,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top.jpg",1200,600,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top-1024x512.jpg",1024,512,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIT_Manipulation_networks-top-540x340.jpg",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>Scientists trained AI on DNA sequences to design new genomes. (BBC)
+ The result was 16 novel viruses which pose no threat to people.<\/em> (WSJ $)
+ They could lead to medical breakthroughs\u2014or biological weapons.<\/em> (Axios)
+ And more complex AI-designed life forms.<\/em> (MIT Technology Review)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n